[aprssig] Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) for APRS

[Dave Baxter]

> In addition, GPS often doesn't work in city downtown areas, 
> due to the urban canyons.  Yet, these places are rich in 
> access points.

Depends as much on the GPS receiver and antenna's capabilities, but.....

So long as the AP owners have presumably logged their site with whoever
(MS?  And was that done knowingly??)  Also, they have an AP that
actually broadcasts the SSID name.  Many don't, but are still fully
usable so long as you know the SSID and whatever WPA key they use.
(What, you're not using WPA and a long key?  WEP has been "broken" some
time ago.)

In this day and age, with script kiddies owning quite powerful laptops
etc, plus "War Driving" as a hobby, anyone with an "Open" WiFi AP, is
somewhat irresponsible.  If it's a private or corporate system, one
would expect (yeah right) for it to be locked down hard.  Amazingly at
the mo', many aren't, even ones that are behind an otherwise secure
company firewall!

In any case, who specifies what in this case?  If a point moves (as they
can with office and company moves etc) most IT people will not rename
the thing, as that then needs all the connecting laptops (and other
devices) to be messed with...  About the most that will be done, is
change the channel number, if there is an existing system at the new
location.

There is some anecdotal evidence, that the "Location Driven Marketing"
thing is what it's about, and it's already going on, with mobile phones
in London for example, but not all networks, and thankfully you have to
opt in (subscribe) if you want it.

If you want to play, get yourself a copy of "NetStumbler".  I say no
more...
http://www.stumbler.net/


73.

Dave G0WBX.